Chicago’s boulevard system is one of the nation’s largest and oldest, stretching 28 miles across 540 acres of green space and linking seven inland parks with Lake Michigan. First envisioned by developer John S. Wright, who in 1837 proposed a connected ring of parks and parkways around the city, the idea gained support with the 1869 Illinois parks bills, which created three regional park commissions to build a unified system linked by pleasure drives. The South Commission employed Frederick Law Olmstead, the West Commission relied on William LeBaron Jenney, and later Jens Jensen reshaped the west parks and boulevards with native plantings, while legal challenges prevented construction of the North Commission’s design for Diversey Parkway. Much of the system was built during the late 19th-century real estate boom, when the boulevards became popular places for promenading, riding, and residential development, especially along Grand, now King Drive, and Drexel boulevards. Chicago’s grand park network drew national attention during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park and along the Midway Plaisance, inspiring similar park and parkway systems in Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C. In the early 1930s the three park commissions were consolidated into the Chicago Park District, which maintained the boulevards until 1959, when responsibility passed to the City of Chicago; today the system encircles the city’s core and remains a testament to the vision that made Chicago a national model.